


The Party Meets a Paladin

by Adamnedusername



Series: Pray for The DM Yall, for The Players Know Not What They Do [1]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dungeons & Dragons, Cleo herds cats, DnD typical violence, Gen, No editors I die like a man learning to edit by myself, Pray for her yall, dnd 5e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27465547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adamnedusername/pseuds/Adamnedusername
Summary: What happens when a heavily bullied runaway sorcerer prince, a druid who was accidentally abandoned by his parents, a GOOlock who was kicked out of wizard school for "practicing" the dark arts, a faelock whose parents and older brother were executed for consorting with the fae, and a bard with a happy childhood go on a quest together?Grian, Scar, Mumbo, Cub, and Zedaph have to steal an artifact from a paladin sworn to a war god.  What could possibly go wrong?
Series: Pray for The DM Yall, for The Players Know Not What They Do [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008246
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	The Party Meets a Paladin

**Author's Note:**

> First time posting on AO3. Please correct me if I did anything wrong.

A buff human man in shining silvery plate armor stood in front of a wood door. The greatsword he was carrying did not make them feel any better about being near this guy, let alone having to steal something from him. Grian and the Gang knew they couldn’t take him in a straight fight, and weren’t magical enough to take him in a magic one.

Cleo spoke up from behind her DM screen. “What do you all wanna do?”

“I mean,” Grian said with unease in his voice, “We probably can’t fight the guy, but we could sneak past him?”

“I forgot. What are we doing again?” Zed asked.

“We’re going to steal a powerful religious artifact back from a splinter cell of paladins and give it back to the main church,” Cub answered.

“Now hold on. Why are we helping a war god’s church?” Scar asked. “Didn’t we agree that we were too squishy to be near war in general?”

“Cleric Mc.Clericface at the temple’s paying us, and besides that keeping a powerful war god artifact out of the hands of warmongers who hate squishy magical cowards like us sounds like a good idea anyway,” Mumbo said to Scar.

“Wait, guys. I have an idea.” Zedaph announced. “We all know charm person. Why don’t we all just cast it on him?”

Grian’s eyes lit up, and he looked like he was gonna dive across the table to give Zed a handshake if doing so wouldn’t earn him Cleo’s ire. “Zed, that's a brilliant idea. Let’s all charm him. He can’t resist us all.”

Cleo grabbed a few more d20s as they described how they walked up to the paladin and cast the spell. They were right. The 16 and 15 only saved him from Mumbo and Scar. The 2 and both 1s meant the intimidating paladin was now putty in Grian, Zed, and Cubs’ hands, and Cub wasted no time.

“Good day sir,” Cub greeted in a smooth tone before showing the emblem the war priest gave them as aid, “I come to inform you that we request the artifact in your possession.”

“Roll deception,” Cleo said.

12, and Cub had to add his charisma and deception modifiers to get it up to a 17.

Cleo, in turn, rolled a 2 for the paladin, and even with wisdom, and insight, the paladin’s pitiful attempt to see through Cub’s ruse meant Cub and his cohorts got to walk away with the powerful artifact of his war god without them even having to lie and say they’re trying to sneak it out in plain clothes for security.

They made their way to the war god temple where an old dwarf with a long ash grey beard greeted them.

“Thank you, adventurers. You have no idea how many lives you’ve spared by getting this away from those warmongers,” he said in the wisest elder voice Cleo could do.

“Anything that keeps those guys from using us as practice dummies,” Grian said while handing him the locked wood box the artifact.

The cleric chuckled. “That’s true, but they wouldn’t know strength if it wasn’t in full plate and ready to conquer the whole kingdom.” He then tossed them a bag containing 100 gold coins. “You may not have the full support of the church, but you have mine.”

The group finished the interaction and walked away.

“Okay, so 100’s not enough to upgrade everyone’s armor at once,” Cub said.

“Yeah, and with what we got, only 3 of you can get new armor,” Grian said.

“Can we go somewhere for lunch?” Mambo said. “I feel like we earned a nice lunch.”

“Hey Cleo,” Scar asked, “Where’s the nearest restaurant?”

“Down the road and once you get to the intersection take a left turn and go 5 buildings down.”

The group started heading to the restaurant while talking about the artifact in the box.

“I mean, I feel like it could be some sort of victory talisman,” Cub guessed.

“Or it could be a victory bringing piece of glove armor. You know, to take your victory in your own hands.” Zed suggested. “The box is big enough for that.”

“Hold on,” Grian interrupted “Glove armor?”

“Yes, glove armor,” Zed said. “Like the piece of armor you put over your hands. I don’t know what it’s called, but I’m calling it that now.”

The others seemed to accept this as they made their way to the restaurant. Once inside they saw it with all kinds of people ordering all kinds of delicious food and filling the place with an overwhelmingly positive atmosphere where they wouldn't have to perform for food and board and where they most definitely wouldn't have to fight for their lives, the perfect reward for some fictional characters between all the angst, hardship, woe, and just general bs that comes with being a DnD character. A tall tiefling lady with green skin and stag antlers showed them to their table before a half-elf lady took their orders. “Hello, and what would you all like today?” the lady asked in a sing-song voice.

“The biggest plate of spaghetti and meatballs I can get.” Mambo then looked to Cleo, “Can I get that?”

“I mean I guess?” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “This place is a general restaurant.”

She then went back to voicing the waitress. “Sir, our biggest plate is 35 centimeters.”

“Then I want 2,” Mambo replied.

“Mumbo you little piggy,” Grian said.

“What? I’m hungry.”

“I’ll have a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a small potato,” Zed snuck in.

“Hey Cub, you wanna split half a duck and some mashed potatoes?” Scar asked Cub.

“Sure.”

Grian ordered a slice of beef, and they all got a small goblet of wine with their meals, and the waitress was off.

“Mumbo you’d better be able to eat all that,” Grian chided.

“Dude, I’ve been wanting something besides rations for weeks.” Mumbo shot back. “You’d be insane to think I wouldn’t finish this.”

Unfortunately, Mumbo did not get to give his little fictional character the only proper meal he’s had in elder gods know how long as the table was cleaved in half and the group was staring down the pissed off paladin they robbed earlier that day.

“Alright you little bastards,” the paladin started in a low growl, “Tell me where the artifact is, and I’ll be merciful and kill you right here instead of dragging you back to the order training grounds to serve as training dummies for the new recruits.”

The other patrons had cleared out of the restaurant by the time the paladin cleaved a table in half leaving them all on their own to deal with this.

“Everyone, group charm person!” Grian shrieked.

Unfortunately, the guy rolled three 14s, a 15, and an 18, meaning their little charm spells had no effects, and they had to battle this tank of a man when their warlocks were now on cantrips only. They all fired off cantrips which effortlessly bounced off the paladin’s armor.

“Your little magic tricks won’t work on me!” he shouted before taking a swing at Cub, and with his mighty greatsword took 10 hit points off of Cub’s measly 15.

Out of game, Cub groaned so loud everyone else thought he was in physical pain. “I’m okay.” He replied. “My character probably isn’t though.”

“I’ll try and heal you.” Scar said, not forgetting Cub’s stellar impression of someone getting slashed with a greatsword.

Scar wasted no time rushing over to try and heal Cub, while Mumbo, Grian, and Cub provided him cover fire. Mambo’s eldritch blast shot high above the paladin’s head, while Cub’s connected with his chest, and a bolt of fire magic from Grian nailed the paladin in the face, burning the flammable flesh. Despite this, the paladin was not distracted. He shouted out one word at Scar. “Halt!” The magic in the command did not take hold, and Scar was able to get over to Cub and heal him before they hobbled about 15 feet away.

What was Zed doing during all this? He’d noticed a bottle of pepper flakes on the floor and had opened it. “I’m going to throw these into his eyes.”

“Okay,” said Cleo. “He’s running right at you. Roll to throw pepper flakes into his eyes.”

In-game the paladin charged Zed, ignoring his friends’ weak spells as they slid off his armor like water on a rain poncho.

“Drop those damned pepper flakes and face your death like a man!”

Zed gulped as he rolled the die, fully expecting to fail. What he was not expecting was a natural 20 and the paladin swinging blindly as his eyes and nose burnt and being clipped by a wild swing.

“Okay, quick update. You all have advantage for a minute until the pepper flakes wear off.” Cleo said. “Honestly seems like a better reward for Zed’s twisted creativity than just a lot of damage.”

“Okay, Zed was just an MVP and gave us 10 rounds where we have an easier time hitting this guy. Let’s goooooooooooooooo!” Grian rallied.

One of the great things about having advantage was the party now had two d20s they could use to try and cover Zed while he healed, Scar’s thorn whip pulling the bad guy away from Mumbo’s eldritch blast but right into Grian’s firebolt and Cub’s critted eldritch blast. In a pepper blinded rage, the paladin swung his sword and broke a chair into pieces.

Scar pulled the paladin toward Grian again(making Mumbo glad this was how Cleo described him missing again), Zed geared up to cast vicious mockery.

“What you’ve never been beaten by...a group of weaklings before?” he stammered.

The paladin had mostly been ignoring Zed’s little magical jabs for the whole fight, but after the little blond bard threw peppers into his eyes, the paladin had enough and decided to just go and end Zed once and for all, but Cub basting the paladin in the back of the head made his attack miss.

And with a final pull from Scar, and an eldritch blast from Mumbo, the paladin was knocked out and lay on the floor battered, burnt, and badly injured but still alive.

“Should we just leave him?” Mumbo asked, “he could come after us.”

“Are you willing to kill him?” Grian asked.

Cleo was also curious about Mumbo’s willingness to murder an innocent man. “I’d say you’d have to beat a 5 if you wanted to stab his neck or slit his throat.”

The others waited with baited breath, really hoping their friend wouldn’t stab some guy in the neck.

“No, that’s not what I was thinking.” The others sighed in relief. “Because if we kill him we have an angry order of war god paladins on our tails, but if we make it look like we could summon an elder god…”

“Ummm...Mumbo, how are we going to do that?” Cub asked, already figuring this might involve his forgery kit.

“Cub will write a note, and I’ll provide a weird looking symbol drawn in blood.”

Nobody questioned where Mumbo would get the blood as Cub pulled out his forgery kit and wrote the note(after having to roll an 18 in deception so Cleo had a DC for the paladins to work with, and would add 5 for Mumbo’s quite frankly intimidating addition to this letter just to make sure her fictional warmonger paladins knew who they were dealing with if they try and go after this group.) before handing it off to Mumbo.

Everyone learned where he would get the blood from when Mumbo took off one of the paladin’s gauntlets and slashed his palm, taking blood from the leaking wound with his fingertip and drawing a made-up symbol like one of the most macabre fingerpaints anyone’s read or written in a while.

After letting Scar and Zed stabilize the man, he stabbed the note into a table. The party ran out of the building and ended the session on the run, Mumbo hoping that leaning that hard into the terrifying warlock image would scare off even hardened war lovers for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. If you're gonna comment on a specific part, can you mention it in your comment? I'm coming over from wattpad where commenting was similar to commenting on google docs, so it might take me a while to get used to how it works here.


End file.
